Wheelchair facts for kids

A modern wheelchairs on restaurant

A wheelchair is a type of chair usually used by disabled people.

A wheelchair is moved either manually (by pushing the wheels with the hands, or pushed from behind with handles by somebody who is not sitting in the wheelchair) or by automated systems such as electric motors which can be controlled by the wheelchair user (the person sitting in the chair) or by somebody walking behind or beside the wheelchair if the wheelchair user needs help to move their wheelchair.

Wheelchairs are used by people for whom walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, or disability. Wheelchairs can have extra cushions and other parts added to improve support if the wheelchair user cannot keep their body in a good sitting position, or to make the wheelchair more comfortable to sit in. The earliest record of the wheelchair in England dates from the 1670s [Oxford English Dictionary, (2nd Ed.), 1989, Vol. XX., p. 203.], and in continental Europe this technology dates back to the German Renaissance.

Images for kids

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  A modern lightweight manual wheelchair

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  Depiction of Chinese philosopher Confucius in a wheelchair, dating to ca. 1680. The artist may have been thinking of methods of transport common in his own day.

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  Folding chair and stackable rigid chairs for visitors in NÄL hospital, Sweden

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  A standing wheelchair with electrical 4-wheel drive and standing functions

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  A modern racing wheelchair

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  US vs. France, FIPFA World Cup, Tokyo, Japan, October 2007

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  Tracked all terrain wheelchair

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  A beach wheelchair

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  Wheelchair ramp and disabled parking space in California

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  A gate for wheelchairs in Hiroshima

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  Nicolas Grollier de Servière (1596–1689) Wheelchair in his Cabinet of curiosities

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  Wooden wheelchair dating to the early part of the 20th century

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  19th-century wheelchair

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  A beach wheelchair at a public beach in the Netherlands

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  A snow wheelchair at an outdoor park

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  A Leveraged Freedom Chair wheelchair user in Kenya. The chair has been engineered to be low-cost and usable on the rough roads common in developing countries.

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  Wheelchair fitted with Mecanum wheels, taken at an Trade fair in the early 1980s

See also

In Spanish: Silla de ruedas para niños